Chicken Little Demands Apology Sky Falling

darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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Crystal Ball Gazing: Visualize the Dow at 6,000

By Mike Whitney

24/07/08 "ICH" -- - Last Wednesday, at an improvised press conference, George Bush gave what may have been the most comical performance of his eight year presidency. Looking like the skipper on the flight-deck of the Hindenburg, Bush tried his best to reassure the public that "all's well" with the economy and that everyone's deposits were perfectly safe in the rapidly disintegrating US banking system. Leaning lazily on the presidential podium, Bush shrugged his shoulders and said,

“My hope is that people take a deep breath and realize that their deposits are protected by our government. We're not seeing the growth we’d like to see, but the financial system is basically sound."

Right. "Breath deep" and chill out; no need to panic. One shouldn't let the long lines of anxious depositors who are presently trying to extract what's left of their life savings from the now-defunct Indymac Bank upset one's basic equanimity. The banking system is perfectly safe, you heard it from President Trickledown himself.

At the same time Bush was offering his soothing words on all the major TV news networks, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was on the other side of Washington giving a decidedly grimmer assessment of the economy:



But Indymac is small potatoes compared to the liabilities of the two mortgage behemoths, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Years of sketchy accounting, risky investments, abusive lending, and political cronyism have eroded the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) balance sheets and pushed them to the brink of insolvency. If they fail, it will be disastrous for the US taxpayer who will be expected to guarantee $5.2 trillion of US residential mortgages, hundreds of billions of which was lent to borrowers who will likely default on their loans in the next few years. As the housing bubble continues to fizzle; Fannie and Freddie will face losses of $500 billion or more, forcing disgruntled foreign investors to ditch their bonds and make for the exits. When that happens, long-term interest rates will skyrocket and the ailing dollar will collapse in a heap. The Bush administration can't allow that to happen, which means that Henry Paulson will push for emergency funding from the congress (which he is doing now) so he can rebuild investor confidence and stop the hemorrhaging of foreign capital. Whether Fannie and Freddie are saved or not, it is bound to be a drain on the dollar which can only get weaker as deficits soar and confidence wanes. There's really very little chance the dollar will survive as the "international currency".

Economist Nouriel Roubini summed it up like this:

"The existence of GSEs...is a major part of the overall U.S. subsidization of housing capital that will eventually lead to the bankruptcy of the U.S. economy. For the last 70 years investment in housing –- the most unproductive form of accumulation of capital -– has been heavily subsidized in 100 different ways in the U.S.: tax benefits, tax-deductibility of interest on mortgages, use of the FHA, massive role of Fannie and Freddie, role of the Federal Home Loan Bank system, and a host of other legislative and regulatory measures.

Splendid article about the crash of the US dollar and the spot of economic bad weather just ahead, there is justice afterall. To bad about the peasants though, oops I is a peasant.:lol:
 
darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
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Thar She Blows

The Last Hurrah for the Banking System

By Mike Whitney

28/07/08 "ICH" --- The Bush administration will be mailing out another batch of "stimulus" checks in the very near future. There's no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can't lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot to stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to "prime the pump" and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There's no other choice.
The daily barrage of bad news is really starting to get on people's nerves. Most of the TV chatterboxes have already cut-out the cheery stock market predictions and no one is praising the "impressive powers of the free market" anymore. They know things are bad, real bad. A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan's West End. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the "big ticket" purchases and the "go-for-broke" trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and all the credit cards are at their limit. The country is drowning in red ink.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the economy, but no one knows what it is? In the last three months bank credit has shrunk faster than any time since 1948. The banks aren't lending and people aren't borrowing; that's a lethal combo. When credit-creation slows, the ec
 
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Senate Member
May 20, 2008
5,658
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darkbeaver said:
Thar She Blows

The Last Hurrah for the Banking System

By Mike Whitney

28/07/08 "ICH" --- The Bush administration will be mailing out another batch of "stimulus" checks in the very near future. There's no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can't lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot to stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to "prime the pump" and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There's no other choice.
The daily barrage of bad news is really starting to get on people's nerves. Most of the TV chatterboxes have already cut-out the cheery stock market predictions and no one is praising the "impressive powers of the free market" anymore. They know things are bad, real bad. A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan's West End. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the "big ticket" purchases and the "go-for-broke" trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and all the credit cards are at their limit. The country is drowning in red ink.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the economy, but no one knows what it is? In the last three months bank credit has shrunk faster than any time since 1948. The banks aren't lending and people aren't borrowing; that's a lethal combo. When credit-creation slows, the ec
Click to expand...

Different way to post. Hopefully it's a phase we're going through.
 
darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
201
63
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No Bailout for Wall Street Billionaires
Ten Reasons to Oppose the Wall Street Bailout

By Prof. James Petras

Global Research, September 28, 2008



Treasury Secretary Paulson and President Bush backed by the Democratic Congressional leadership have asked Congress for $700 billion dollars to bailout Wall Street financial institutions.
Over the past several years these banks reaped billions of dollars borrowing and speculating on mortgages, securities and other financial paper with virtually no capital covering their bets. With the fall in the housing market, Wall Street’s financial debts skyrocketed, the value of their holdings evaporated and they are saddled with trillions of dollars of debt.

Paulson, Bush and the Congressional leadership want the US taxpayer to buy Wall Street’s worthless private debts, saddling current and future generations of US taxpayers with worthless paper.

Paulson/Bush and the Congressional leaders falsely claim that failure to bailout the Wall Street swindlers will lead to the collapse of the financial system. In fact, almost 200 of our leading economists from the most prestigious universities reject Paulson’s bailout. The truth of the matter is that withholding funds to Wall Street will lead to the collapse of the swindler-speculator-run financial system, which created the current economic debacle.

The Federal Government can and should use the hundreds of billions of public money to establish a national, publicly controlled banking and investment system subject to oversight by elected representatives. The collapse of the current bankrupt financial system is both a threat and an opportunity: The collapse of this corrupt system has led to the loss of jobs and frozen credit and lending; the establishment of a new publicly owned banking system offers an opportunity to finance the priorities of the vast majority of the American people: the re-industrialization of our economy, a universal national health program, securing and extending social security into the next century, rebuilding our decaying infrastructure and many other programs essential to the American way of life.

The problem is not the false alternative of bailing out Wall Street or financial chaos and collapse: The real choice is between subsidizing swindlers or establishing a responsible, responsive and equitable publicly run financial system.

Ten Reasons to Oppose the Wall Street Bailout

1.In a market economy capitalists justify their profits by the risk of losses that they take. Gamblers cannot keep their profits and pass their losses to the taxpayers. They have to take responsibility for their bad decisions.

2.Much of the toxic (garbage) debts were based on fraudulent practices – opaque financial instruments unrelated to real assets (but which generated huge commissions). Bailing out swindlers only encourages more swindling.

3.The US Treasury will purchase worthless paper, the private banks will retain any assets of value. We buy the lemons, they drive the Cadillacs.

4.The chance of the Treasury recovering any value from their purchases of bad debt is near zero. The taxpayers will be stuck with paper with no buyers.

5.The long-term effect of a bailout will be to double the public debt and undercut funding for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and public health programs while increasing the tax burden of future generations.

6.The dollar will devalue as the government debt will decrease its attractiveness overseas, increasing the cost of imports and resulting in an inflationary spiral which will further undermine working people’s living standards.

7.The channeling of funds to Wall Street will divert funds from getting us out of this deepening recession.

8.The bailout will deepen the financial crisis because, according to the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, it will expose the fact that many institutions may be carrying many more ‘toxic assets’ and reveal that those institutions are not solvent. In other words, the Treasury and Congress are freeing up bad debts to insolvent institutions.

9.The bailout is aimed at facilitating lending; but if the problem is not credit but (as the Congressional Budget Office has shown) the insolvency of the financial institutions, the solution is to create solvent financial institutions.

10.The bailout totally ignores the financial needs of 10 million homeowners facing foreclosures; the bankruptcy of small enterprises facing a credit crunch and the loss of workers’ jobs and health plans for their families because of the recession.

Alternatives to the Wall Street Bailout



The speed with which this gigantic amount of public funds had been made available by the Treasury and Congress puts the lie to their argument that popular programs cannot be funded or need to be cut back. In fact, investing $700 billion in the health and education of American workers will increase productivity, open markets and expand consumer power leading to a virtuous circle increasing public revenues and eliminating the budget and trade deficits.

Public funds invested in manufacturing, construction, education and health care leads to products with real use value and has a multiplier effect on the rest of the economy instead of ending up in the pockets of billionaires who speculate and invest in mergers and overseas buyouts.

The Treasury and Congress have inadvertently revealed that federal financing is readily available to rebuild the US economy, guarantee decent living wages and provide health care for everyone if we choose elective officials who are committed to the needs of the US workers and not the Wall Street billionaires.

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 63 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His publishers have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge, Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books. He is winner of the Life Time Career Award, Marxist Section, of the American Sociology Association, the Robert Kenny Award for Best Book, 2002, and the Best Dissertation, Western Political Science Association in 1968. His latest books are: Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, and Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire
 
darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses
And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

Humpty Dumpty
Sentado en un muro.
Humpty Dumpty
Se ha caído muy duro.
Todos los caballeros
Y jinetes del rey,
Fueron a levantarlo
Y no pudieron con él.

or....
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Threescore men and threescore more,
Can't place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.
 
darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
201
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RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
Financial Bailout: Thanks but No Thanks
What Lincoln would have said to Paulson's $700 Billion Ransom

By Dr. Ellen Brown

Global Research, September 28, 2008
www.webofdebt.com

​
​
“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.” – Abraham Lincoln, speech to Illinois legislature, January 1837


​

In July, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said of his massive underwriting scheme for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, “If you have a bazooka in your pocket and people know it, you probably won’t have to use it.” On September 7, Paulson pulled out his bazooka and fired, effectively nationalizing the mortgage giants. Last week, Paulson pulled out the bazooka again and held it to Congress’s head. “Seven hundred billion dollars or your credit system will collapse!” Seven hundred billion dollars is more than the country currently pays annually for Social Security; and for what do we owe this ransom? To bail out bankers from their own folly in speculating in a giant derivative Ponzi scheme that is now imploding. But policymakers justify rewarding the guilty parties at the expense of the taxpayers by arguing that “we have to do it to save the banking system.” ​
​
Abraham Lincoln was faced with a similar situation when he stepped into the Presidency in 1861. The country was suddenly in a civil war, and there was insufficient money to fund it. The British bankers, knowing they had him over a barrel, agreed to lend him money only at 24 to 36% interest, highly usurious rates that would have bankrupted the North. Our fearless forefather said, “Thanks but no thanks, I’ll print my own.” Issuing the national currency is the sovereign right of governments. A government does not need to borrow its national currency from bankers “merely pretending to have money.” That was the phrase used by Thomas Jefferson when he realized the bankers’ “fractional reserve” lending scheme meant that they were lending the same “reserves” many times over. ​
​
The federal dollars issued by Lincoln were called U.S. Notes or Greenbacks. They allowed the North not only to win the Civil War but to create the greatest industrial giant the world had ever seen. Lincoln’s government launched the steel industry, created a continental railroad system, promoted a new era of farm machinery and cheap tools, established free higher education, provided government support to all branches of science, organized the Bureau of Mines, increased labor productivity by 50 to 75 percent. The Greenback was not the only currency used to fund these achievements; but they could not have been accomplished without it, and they could not have been accomplished on money borrowed at 30% interest.​
​
There are other historical examples. In the 1930s, Australia and New Zealand avoided the Depression conditions suffered elsewhere by drawing on a national credit card issued by publicly-owned central banks. The governments of the island states of Guernsey and Jersey have been issuing their own money for two centuries, creating thriving economies without carrying federal debt. ​
​
In none of these models has government-issued money created dangerous price inflation. Price inflation results either when the supply of money goes up but the supply of goods doesn’t, or when speculators crash currencies by massive short selling, as in those cases of Latin American hyperinflation when printing-press money was used to pay off foreign debt. When new money is used to produce new goods and services, price inflation does not result because supply and demand rise together. Prices increased during the American Civil War, but this was attributed to the scarcity of goods common in wartime. War produces weapons rather than consumer goods.​
​
Today in most countries, money is created privately by banks when they make loans; but the banks create only the principal, not the interest necessary to pay the loans back. The interest must be borrowed into existence, continually increasing the money supply, in a Ponzi scheme that has reached its mathematical limits. The latest desperate proposal for propping up this collapsing system is to deliver $700 billion of taxpayer money to ex-Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson to buy unmarketable derivative paper from the banks, shifting the loss on this dodgy paper from the banks to the taxpayers. Seven hundred billion is just the opening figure; losses on the imploding derivatives pyramid could wind up being in the trillions. And where will this money come from? It will no doubt be borrowed into existence from the banking system. We the people will be in the anomalous position of paying interest on a debt to the banks to bail out the banks! At the very least, doesn’t it seem that the banks should be paying interest on the $700 billion to us?​
​
Rather than propping up an unsustainable system with taxpayer money, it may be time to let the private money-making scheme collapse and replace it with something better. Banks that have thrived in an unregulated free market should be left to work out their fates in that market. If they go bankrupt, they can be put into receivership and reorganized in return for an equity interest in the banks, as was done recently with AIG. The government would then own a string of banks, which could issue “the full faith and credit of the United States” directly, returning the country to productivity and prosperity just as Lincoln did. ​
​
As for the derivatives mess, there may be some derivatives that serve useful market functions, but most of them should be declared an illegal form of gambling and void. Neither party would owe on the deal; the bets would cancel each other out. True, dodgy assets transformed into “triple-A” investments by fake derivative insurance would lose that rating; but they aren’t triple-A investments, and the pension funds now holding them should dump them. The downgrades could wreak havoc on the balance sheets of some banks, but that’s the free market. If they go bankrupt and we the people have to bail them out, we should do it only in return for adequate quid pro quo in the form of their stock. Like Lincoln, we should say “Thanks but no thanks” to Paulson’s $700 billion ransom.​
​
Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, and Forbidden Medicine. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com. ​

 
darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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Worse than the Great Depression

By Dr. Krassimir Petrov

Global Research, November 4, 2008
Financial Sense - Uncommon News and Views for the Wise Investor

The mainstream media and Wall Street have reached the consensus that the current credit crisis is the worst since the post-war period. George Soros’ statement that ”the world faces the worst finance crisis since WWII” epitomizes the collective wisdom. The crisis is currently the ultimate scapegoat for all the economic evils that currently plague the global financial system and the global economy – from collapsing stock markets of the world to food shortages in third world countries. We are repeatedly assured that the ultimate fault lies with the Credit Crisis itself; if there were no Credit Crisis, all of these terrible things would never have happened in the economy and the financial markets.
The most extraordinary thing is that the mainstream media has never attempted to compare the current economic environment to that preceding the Great Depression. It is assumed outright that the Great Depression could never happen again, thus obviating the need for such a comparison.

The macroeconomic fundamentals today are much worse. We are in for a protracted period of economic depression – a depression much worse than the Great Depression, a depression that would likely be remembered in history as “The Second Great Depression” or The Greater Depression, as Doug Casey has called it so aptly. Here is why I believe that this is the case.
Duplicating Mistakes from the Great Depression
At its core, the environment of the 1990s, and the response of the Fed to the tech-telecom bust has created an economic environment that has encouraged the repetition of the very same mistakes that led t
 
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Senate Member
May 20, 2008
5,658
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darkbeaver said:
Worse than the Great Depression

By Dr. Krassimir Petrov

Global Research, November 4, 2008
Financial Sense - Uncommon News and Views for the Wise Investor

The mainstream media and Wall Street have reached the consensus that the current credit crisis is the worst since the post-war period. George Soros’ statement that ”the world faces the worst finance crisis since WWII” epitomizes the collective wisdom. The crisis is currently the ultimate scapegoat for all the economic evils that currently plague the global financial system and the global economy – from collapsing stock markets of the world to food shortages in third world countries. We are repeatedly assured that the ultimate fault lies with the Credit Crisis itself; if there were no Credit Crisis, all of these terrible things would never have happened in the economy and the financial markets.
The most extraordinary thing is that the mainstream media has never attempted to compare the current economic environment to that preceding the Great Depression. It is assumed outright that the Great Depression could never happen again, thus obviating the need for such a comparison.

The macroeconomic fundamentals today are much worse. We are in for a protracted period of economic depression – a depression much worse than the Great Depression, a depression that would likely be remembered in history as “The Second Great Depression” or The Greater Depression, as Doug Casey has called it so aptly. Here is why I believe that this is the case.
Duplicating Mistakes from the Great Depression
At its core, the environment of the 1990s, and the response of the Fed to the tech-telecom bust has created an economic environment that has encouraged the repetition of the very same mistakes that led t
Click to expand...

I do not doubt that that is what we are facing.
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darkbeaver

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
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Epochal Transformation Accelerates as Global Financial Matrix Disintegrates

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Topic9.htmlhttp://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7078.html Now that the genie is out of the bottle, economic, political and social events will proceed with the inexorable force of destiny. The forthcoming changes, shifts and breaks with the past that are delineated below do concern the unsavory business of WHAT, positively, will not be brought into the future. This is of critical importance. Why? Because those who do not know, and understand, and heed history, are always, always forced to repeat it.

​

I. As we all sat back and waited for this year's October Surprise, please know that it came a little bit early this year on September 15 th which will forever be known as PITCH BLACK MONDAY. Actually, the entire month of October was set up to be a series of Black Monday's, as well as every other day of the week shaped up to be. It's really a good time to brace your self since this year's election cycle, and beyond, will bring with it a whole new season of surprises. Things like the beginning of the end of FIAT money – the real root cause of all our financial problems and economic ills. This foundational flaw, together with all of the multi-layered financial/economic/accounting mechanisms and schemes that have insidiously crept into the system, are the ‘not talked about' institutionalized culprits and structural deformities that really need to go. Without them, the perps wouldn't be so tempted to stack the deck against us all the time.
The only legitimate currency is that which is backed by GOLD, or some other precious commodity that is universally valued, and issued directly by the US Government, not a privately owned, organized crime syndicate like the FED. Debt driven, fractional-reserve banking – the real bane of global finance – will then be banished from the planet forever, along with the overlords of disaster capitalism, institutionalized usury & loan-sharking (e.g. World Bank & International Monetary Fund), as well as their economic hitmen. Finally, the central organizing principle of modern society, and especially Western Civilization, will no longer be: maximizing shareholders' wealth .
II. Another little surprise will come in the form of an announcement that goes something like this: The USA was conceived to be a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC , not a democracy by plutocracy . The founding fathers would be absolutely horrified to see the “ mob rule by the privileged elites” into which this once great nation has degenerated. Every political philosopher knows that democracy, when sufficiently dumbed down and unduly influenced by the moneyed ruling class, will always devolve into a despotic tyranny. Therefore, the wholesale exportation of our fraudulent notion of democracy, and its supposed freedoms (to buy, buy, buy after watching the boob tube hucksters), by the political and corporate classes must be reconsidered. And it will be soon, on a new channel during this “Fall” season's new lineup! Stay tuned ---
III. Another announcement will be made, in the not too distant future, about the business entity commonly known as the CORPORATION ** – the main huckster of this ‘brand' of faux democracy . Surely, if the devil were to ever choose the perfect form in which to enter in order to carry out his nefarious designs, Inc . is it. Is there any other entity on earth – person or party, organization or association, government or institution, jurisdiction or bureaucracy, club or group, fraternity or sorority, etc. that can function with such impunity, as it hides behind the shield of LIMITED LIABILITY. Those two words have given complete cover for the flagrant and wanton destruction of planet Earth.
You name it – oil slicked coastlines, razed rainforests, beaches strewn with dead dolphins and whales. Not to mention the co
 
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